The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII by El-Hai Jack

Author:El-Hai, Jack [El-Hai, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610391573
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2013-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

To Kelley, the trial and its run-up had served as fascinating laboratories for the study of the group dynamics of aggression, criminal motivation, defense mechanisms of the guilty, depression, and the response of deviant personalities to the judicial process. Kelley was with the prisoners as they faced their impending judgment and for the disturbing surfacing of their emotions. He saw the victors release their anger, and perhaps cleanse their own guilt for wartime brutalities they, too, had committed, through the accumulation of nose-rubbing evidence against the Nazis and the prosecution of the German leaders in court. The imprisoned individuals were set up to bear the responsibility for the war and its accessory horrors, perhaps so others could begin to feel less responsible. The deadly mess and blistering hatred of battle morphed into a logical and calculated game of strategy in the courtroom, complete with the prospect of a satisfying verdict in the end. Kelley found himself in the service of a nation that, in battling an ideology intent upon ruling the world and taking charge of the tribunal’s administration, now emerged to lord over much of the planet.

Leon Goldensohn, a thirty-four-year-old physician from Newark, arrived on January 8, 1946, to replace Kelley as Nuremberg jail psychiatrist. The new man impressed the prisoners and jail staff with his congenial manner, unaggressive style, and willingness to listen to the defendants for long stretches without challenging them or saying much at all in response.

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